President-elect Donald Trump has announced that he will attend the Fox Nation Patriot Awards event in New York on Thursday to receive the Fox Patriot of the Year honor just a few years after he tried to overturn the results of of the 2020 election.
“I look greatly forward to attending the Fox [Nation] Patriot Awards, hosted by Sean Hannity in New York on Thursday evening. I will be receiving the Fox Patriot of the Year Award — so nice! See you there,” Trump preened on Truth Social on Tuesday night.
The awards will be hosted by Fox for the sixth time and will be streamed live on Fox Nation.
Hannity took on the role of hosting the event after Pete Hegseth’s departure from the network to be Trump’s nominee for secretary of defense.
Fox Nation has more than two million subscribers and was the first streaming service created by one of the three major cable news networks, Mediaite noted.
Hegseth’s nomination is now in trouble as he faces accusations of sexual assault and other mistreatment of women, and an apparent struggle with alcohol. Trump is considering replacing him with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, according to several news outlets.
DeSantis has reportedly expressed interest in leading the Pentagon if asked, according to CNN.
Hegseth told CBS on Wednesday that he spoke to Trump “this morning. He said keep going, keep fighting. I’m behind you all the way.”
“Why would I back down? I’ve always been a fighter. I’m here for the warfighters. This is personal and passionate for me,” he added.
Hegseth’s mother, Penelope Hegseth, appeared on Fox & Friends Wednesday morning amid stories about her son’s alleged sexual misconduct, excessive drinking, and financial mismanagement in his leadership of veterans’ groups.
She said she appeared on the network “to set the record straight” about a 2018 email she wrote to her son in which she accused him of mistreating women.
Penelope Hegseth began the interview by appealing to Trump not to drop her son as his nominee for secretary of defense.
“Thank you for your belief in my son,” she said on Fox. “We all believe in him. We really believe that he is not that man he was seven years ago. I’m not that mother, and I hope people will hear that story today and [the] truth of that story.”
She added: “I am here to tell the truth — to tell the truth to the American people and tell the truth to senators on the hill, especially female senators. I really hope that you will not listen to the media and you will listen to Pete.”
